Sometimes Rain Makes a Great Photograph

October 7, 2014

I don’t know about you, but I hate getting up early. But sometimes it’s worth it!

This time of year we are always looking for a great image for the annual Tackaberry Construction calendar. This time last year, I got up before dawn to photograph Tackaberry Construction’s paving crew laying down asphalt on Hwy 42 outside Athens (their home town). When I got there it had started to rain and it was decided it was too wet to pave that day at that location. Darn, I could have grabbed another hour of sleep!

But, sometimes a set BACK can turn into a set UP, and that’s exactly what I saw in my rear view mirror – a break in the clouds was producing a fantastic sunrise. Fortunately, I was just at the entrance to the Tackaberry Asphalt Plant, so I swung in and zipped to the perfect vantage point. There was no time to spare – within a minute the sunrise was gone and the light had completely changed. But that one minute was enough time to produce a wonderful image.

The steam coming off the towers was spectacularly backlit by the rising sun. To maintain the detail in the plant structure and still capture the rich colours of the sunrise, I ended up combining three different exposures into this final image.